DESCRIPTION,  &c.
Where New-Netherlands is situated.
This country is situated in the New American World, beginning north of the Equinoctial Line, 38 deg. and 53 min., extending north-easterly along the sea-coast^ to the 42d deg., and is named New-Netherlands, by the Netherlander, for reasons to be related hereafter; lying in the latitude of Sardinia and Corsica, in the Mediterranean Sea, and of Spain and France along the Ocean ; the South River* corresponding exactly with the Flemish Islands, with the rivers of Lisbon, with the south point of the Island of Sardinia, and of the Punctum Meridional^ of the Orientals, reckoning an easterly course from the Canary Islands by west, upon the 316th degree, or counting due west 44 degrees from the Punctum Meridonale, whereon we hold the Canary Islands, being 660 miles, corresponding with Cape Mesuratta on the Barbary coast in Africa, in the kingdom of Tripoli, and with Cape Spartivento, being the uttermost corner of Italy against the Mediterranean Sea. New-Netherlands is a fine, acceptable, healthy, extensive and agreeable country, wherein all people can more easily gain a competent support, than in the Netherlands, or in any other quarter of the globe, which is known to me or which I have visited.
When, and by whom, Neiv-Neiherlands was first discovered.
This country was first found and discovered in the year of our Lord 1609 ; when, at the cost of the incorporated East In-
• The river Delaware.
t The Punctum Mertdionale of the orientals, in probably the meridian assumed by Ptolemy, which passed through the farthest of the Canary Islands. The Dutch geographers and mariners pitched upon the Peak of Teneriffe for their meridian. See Chambers. The. Arabian geographers chose to fix their meridian upon the utmost shore of the Western ocean, which was then the most westerly part of the known world, and may be the Oriental Meridian referred to, and adopted by Ptolemy, who flourished 150 years before Christ, and reduced Geography to a regular system. After the fall of the Roman empire, Europe was enveloped in darkness, wheiKthe arts and sciences were preserved by the Arabians and the orientals of Asia.—Trans.